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w/ Prof. Dennis Yi Tenen
MW 1:00pm-4:10pm
511 Hamilton Hall
A story in the "occupational" genre develops within a professional setting, like a hospital, airport, or police department. Occupational novels (and film and television scripts) are widely consumed but rarely studied. In this course, we will take a deep dive into the history of the genre, beginning with works from French and Soviet realisms, and continuing to American police procedurals and Japanese business novels.
Despite its popular image, works in this genre will lead us to profound philosophical questions about collective intelligence, personal belonging, the emergence of institutional agency, and the feeling of personal powerlessness in the face of large bureaucracies. Readings from Plato, Hobbes, Marx, Mary Douglas, Sara Ahmed other institutional theorists will therefore anchor our weekly discussion.
3 hour sessions, 2 times a week, for 6 weeks.
Depending on the week, our time in class (and out) will be divided between three types of activities:
- First, with the emphasis on discussion of primary materials. Occasional "philological walks" (discussion while walking in groups outside) weather permitting.
- Second, with emphasis on discussion of secondary materials including literary theory, philosophy, and social thought.
- Third, with emphasis on "experimental methods," involving formal analysis, parsing, annotating, mapping, diagramming, or site visits.
All texts will be provided via .pdf or purchased and must be present in paper format for active comprehension.
- Selections from Pierre Hamp's People (1917) including "The Fried-potato Sisters," "At the Chevalier Restaurant," and "A Labour Demonstration."
- Book IV in Plato's Republic and Chapters XVI and XVII in Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes.
- Passage work. Close reading. Reading aloud.
- Group reading Chapters 1--4 from The Octopus (1901) by Frank Norris.
- "The Ant-colony as an Organism" by William Morton Wheeler in Journal of Morphology Volume 22, Issue 2 p. 307-325 (1911).
- Explore Chapters 4 ("Evolution of Group Organization") and pages 256--264 ("Networks") in Who Shall Survive? (1934) by Jacob Moreno.
- Mapping time, space, social networks.
- "Overcoat" and "The Nose" by Gogol.
- Chapters 1--4 in Cement (1924) by Fyodor Gladkov.
- Group read the The Principles of Scientific Management by Frederick Taylor.
- Chapters 4 and 6 from How Institutions Think (1986) by Mary Douglas.
- Playing Overcooked!
- All of Cop Hater (1956).
- "The General Will" (Chapter 3) from Sara Ahmed's Willful Subjects.
- lexicon, jargon
- "Romance in Money: The Phenomenon of Japanese Business Novels" by Tamae Prindle in The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Nov., 1991), pp. 195-215.
- "Made in Japan" by Saburo Shiroyama and "Giants and Toys" by Takeshi Kaiko from the volume of collected stories, Made in Japan.
- Archival work in professional self-help literature.
- Selections from Arthur Hailey's Airport (1968).
- "How a Cockpit Remembers its Speeds," by Edwin Hutchins.
- "Distributed Agency in the Novel" by Dennis Yi Tenen.
- Site visit.
- Vin de champagne (1908), Le Rail (1912), and Le Lin (1924) by Pierre Hamp (Henri Bourrillon).
- Andrei Platonov’s Foundation Pit (~1930s); Marietta Shaginian’s Hydroplant (1931); and Yuri Krymov’s Tanker ‘Derbent’ (1938).
- Parking Garage (1977) and Supermarket (1980) by Ilia Shtemler; Freedom Factory (2013) by Ksenia Buksha and Laments of Northern Territories (2014) by Irina Glebova.
- The Green Berets (1965) by Robin Moore, MASH (1968) by Richard Hooker; Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising (1986), John Grisham’s The Firm (1991)
- Microserfs (1995) by Douglas Coupland, Company (2007) by Max Barry, Ravi Subramanian’s Bankrupt (2013), The Circle (2013) by Dave Eggers.
- 25% Class participation
- 25% Weekly short writing responses
- 25% Final exam (designed to reward regular, attentive reading)
- 25% Final paper / project
When in doubt, cite! Plagiarism is insulting to your fellow students, your instructors, and to the research community at large. It wastes my time and yours, and is, ultimately, not worth the risk. Consult Columbia’s guidelines at http://www.college.columbia.edu/academics/integrity or ask me for help early in the writing process.